Mr. Paul Joyce:

It seems to me the definition, or the mandate, was a good idea at the time.

We understand what the Legislature was trying to set out in principle, but it is a little contradictory in places. The difficulty with the wording is the requirement to act in an informal manner. I do not believe the Financial Services Ombudsman is prevented from acting in an informal manner, even if it is not stated in the legislation. The second part of the mandate - "according to equity, good conscience and the substantial merits of the complaint" - gives the ombudsman plenty of scope to act informally. As a legal rights organisation, our big difficulty is with the requirement to act "without regard to technicality and legal form". We have had experience of this. We conducted some High Court appeals against decisions of the ombudsman that were, thankfully, successful where there had been errors and flaws. It is important that any alternative dispute resolution service take the law into account and be required to do so, whereas this mandate seems to suggest otherwise. We do not have a huge problem with informality; it is perfectly understandable that an alternative dispute resolution body such as the Financial Services Ombudsman would want to act informally, but, no more than the name and shame issue - we did not think the ombudsman had to have legislative power to name and shame - we do not think he has to have legislative power to act informally.